The Wrens: 'Our best years are clearly behind us'

Cult New Jersey rockers The Wrens have made an emotional posting about their long-awaited new album, saying: "Our best years are clearly behind us."

The four-piece have yet to release an album since 2003's acclaimed 'The Meadowlands', and regularly feature in lists of most-anticipated new albums alongside similarly stately artists such as Dr Dre and The Avalanches.

Singer Charles Bissell has continued to update fans on the band's progress. He announced in May that the album was ready to be mastered but, in a posting on The Wrens' Facebook page, Bissell wrote: "I just put all the most current versions of the songs together into a full album file and listened to it top to bottom, backing away from the trees to view the forest for the first time in a long one. Then I listened to 'The Meadowlands' for the first time in years and, well, I can now definitively say don't get your hopes up. My best years and work are clearly behind me. Which is sad, because I've pretty much burned every available moment of the last four years at least doing this. It's sorta shocking, really."

Referring to bassist and co-writer Kevin Whelan, Bissell continued: "Kevin's songs are largely coming out better. So there's that." He later added another post, saying: "In the interests of equal broadcast time from the same deeply conflicted person, I will say that 'And It's All Guns & Arrows' is the finest song ever recorded."

The Wrens released their debut album 'Silver' in 1994 but, following second album 'Secaucus' in 1996, they were caught up in record company wranglings and prevented from releasing more music until 'The Meadowlands', which wasn't given a UK release until 2006.